Lucifer Rising

Lucifer Rising 

Directed by: Kenneth Anger

Running Time: 42:55 min   Color  Date: 1972

Lucifer Rising is a short film by director Kenneth Anger. Anger began filming around 1966, hiring a young musician named Bobby Beausoleil to act and compose the soundtrack. The film was abandoned in 1967 because Anger claimed the film footage had been stolen by Beausoleil. The film was completed in 1972 but was only widely distributed in 1980

This film embraces its demonic inspirations and energies, channeling an arcane series of references to Egyptology and the occult practices of Aleister Crowley and expressing their meaning in cinematic terms. Superimpositions, associative flash cuts, venetian wipes, seesaw tracking shots, a complex, oddly moving rock score by Bobby Beausoleil, and Marianne Faithfull are all woven into an effortlessly lucid stream of violence, sex, death and cosmic consummation. Lucifer Rising is a pure ritual, literally and figuratively.

Lucifer was originally played by Chris Jagger, but squabbling between him and Kenneth Anger led to Chris returning to London and Anger taking over the role.

The score for the movie was composed by the incarcerated killer Bobby Beausoleil, one of the infamous Charles Manson family killers. He was in jail when he made the score.

Originally Kenneth Anger wanted Jimmy Page to score the film but he didn't care for the music when Page finally delivered. A bearded Page makes a brief appearance gazing at a portrait of occultist Aleister Crowley. The special effects are courtesy of Wally Veevers who also worked on Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Unauthorized 23-min Jimmy Page soundtrack 12" E.P. available via mail-order
Original Bobby Beausoleil soundtrack released in 1981 on "Disgust Records" label